


Naked in a hotel room

by mithborien



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-16
Updated: 2006-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:52:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithborien/pseuds/mithborien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He just gets to his feet, his joints aching with more than age, but it’s effortless when he leans down to kiss her and when her arms and legs are wrapped around him he can finally let himself go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Naked in a hotel room

It’s a grey dawn that Remus wakes to, in a haze of half remembered dreams that are too close to reality. Pale curtains are drawn back to let weak sunlight seep inside, emphasising the hollows his legs make under the sheets and the scars against his skin.

Tonks shifts beside him, still in the patient relief of sleep. Her naked shoulder exposed as he gets out of the bed and he pauses for a moment to watch the vertebrae of her spine ripple against her skin, the way the grey light seems to drain away the colour in her hair.

The hotel room is a low class joint, just clean enough to pass inspection and just dirty enough to wish you were someplace else. Not that they have many choices these days. It’s weird; they won the war but lost too many battles.

Remus didn’t need to read the proclamation by the Ministry that stated all werewolves were to be killed on sight for their involvement with the fallen Dark Lord. He didn’t need to read the newspaper articles that refused to comment on the supposed connection between lycanthropy and supporting a mad man. He didn’t need to look at the faces around him to realise what it meant for his future. He didn’t need to feel the harsh, desperate and far too committed kiss that Tonks gave him after she quit her job to know she was coming with him.

Tonks only wears her pink hair in private now. When it’s just the two of them alone and he can’t quite let go of her fingers against his skin and the warmth she gives off. When they stay in places he doubted he would have gone close to when he was broke and running away from his past. Now they’re running away from the world and he doesn’t know whether to be grateful or angry that she stuck around for the ride.

Sometimes she stares at him and he wonders whether it’s pity that she hides behind her ever-changing eyes. She then asks why he looks at her like she’s about to run away but he doesn’t answer her. He can’t. He just gets to his feet, his joints aching with more than age, but it’s effortless when he leans down to kiss her and when her arms and legs are wrapped around him he can finally let himself go. He can let go of all the fears and doubts and hate and it almost feels like he’s back home. Whether that’s Hogwarts or the cottage his parents once owned, he doesn’t know. It’s the feeling that everything is right with the world and that he belongs. She feels right.

But then its days like this when he realises that everything is still broken. Heaven has disappeared, Hell doesn’t care and the grey landscape outside the window is the nothingness threatening to fade him away.

The light in the bathroom is flickering, making his eyes appear more sunken, bare skin clinging harder to his bones. He’s falling more and more each day and it’s getting harder and harder to let her pull him back into her arms.

He hears the bed creak and the soft moans she always makes when she finally wakes. The room next door has a radio on and as she walks into the bathroom her feet echo to the strained beat of the music. She drags a hand across his naked back and gives him a sleepy smile. He wonders where he would be if it hadn’t been for her, whether he would have kept struggling on or just given up in a gutter somewhere. He’s come close a couple of times in his life but that was before he met her.

He turns around, his back to the mirror and reaches out a hand. His fingers nudge against her hip and she wraps one arm around his neck and kisses his forehead. He smiles and kisses her neck in return and when the light flickers again and finally dies, the hotel room disappears.


End file.
